


Sierra Vista

by beedekka



Category: Rambo Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 21:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2826878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beedekka/pseuds/beedekka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of the third film, John Rambo returns to Arizona to set up a farm and leave everything about the military behind.  Well, nearly everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sierra Vista

**Author's Note:**

  * For [galerian_ash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/galerian_ash/gifts).



> I couldn't let Yuletide go by without treating this little 'what if?' - I hope you like it!

“I don’t think this is gonna cut it.” Rambo frowned at the base of the wooden fencepost he was trying to set back into the ground. “We'll wind up with the same problem from before: when the rainstorms really start, it’s gonna wash the earth out and destabilise it.”

“You want to dig it in deeper, then?” Trautman asked him, readying to take up the shovel he was leaning on.

“Or just anchor everything in place better.” Rambo gave the post a hefty wrench and laid it on the grass away from the hole, before taking off his gloves and pushing his sweat-damp hair off his face. “Let’s take a break, then maybe we need to get some gravel from by the house; fix this bastard in the ground for good.”

Trautman shrugged. “Whatever you want to do. Just point me in the right direction. This is a strictly ‘no thinking’ vacation for me.”

“Sorry – it doesn’t seem like so great of a vacation when you spend the first two days helping me with a bunch of crap I should’ve got done before.”

“John, I genuinely don’t care. In fact, I love doing this; it’s exactly the kind of thing I _don’t_ get to do when I’m working anymore. I want to get my hands dirty with you.”

His words sent Rambo’s mind flashing back to the previous night and how 'getting their hands dirty' together was exactly what they’d done. He felt himself redden a little for immediately thinking of that, and Trautman chuckled at his reaction. “Opened my mouth before thinking through how that would come out,” he apologised. “I’m serious, though. I want to use every second of my leave to do honest-to-goodness, useful things, instead of being mired in reams of bullshit paperwork.”

“I told you, you gotta get out for real, not just take leave. It’s not gonna get any better; you’re just going to get older while no one there gives a shit.”

“Soon. I said I’d work us _both_ a way out, and I will. There’s just always loose ends that need tying up. I want us to be secure with my income and your business, and then as far as I’m concerned, I’m finished. The military can sign off my pension and forget that we exist.”

Rambo sat down heavily on the tarpaulin they’d carried the shovels and tamper out in, and looked past the downed fence to the boundary of the farm. It was going to be a lot of work, but once this place was fixed up enough that he could start doing a little business with the other people in the area, and his partner had actually pulled off the exit deal he was angling for, his life was going to be getting around to the way he wanted it. It wasn’t exactly how he’d pictured it when he was younger, but he’d just ended up to be a pretty unorthodox guy all around… He and Trautman both, it turned out.

Trautman came to join him on the ground, and Rambo shifted to lay back on the tarp, flexing down through each of his muscles and staring up at the smattering of clouds passing overhead. His mind drifted back to the job in hand. “Might need to get some tape to tie around the wire in places as well; can’t really see it’s there until you get right up to it.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“I’ll look through that shit at the back of the barn tomorrow – see if they left anything stowed away in there I can use. Even rags would do it, if there’s something I can strip up… Wouldn’t last very long, but it wouldn’t cost, either.”

Trautman didn’t make an answer to that, and Rambo pressed his shoulders against the ground and closed his eyes. It wasn’t too hot out in the open fields today, just warm, but it was pleasant enough to feel the sun on his skin and listen to the breeze passing through the unkempt grass on the ‘outside’ of the fence.

When he opened them again, he felt cooler and the clouds had settled in a distinctly different pattern across the sky. It took him a second to realise that he’d been sleeping. “Shit,” he mumbled, sitting up to see that Trautman was back working on the post, shirt off now and tied loosely around his waist. “Sorry,” Rambo told him, “I shoulda been helping with that.”

Trautman waved a hand, unconcerned. “Stay there – I don’t mind.” He smiled. “It about figures that you’d toss and turn all night in a perfectly comfortable bed up in that house, then you get out here in the open air and you’re gone straight away.”

Rambo scratched the back of his neck embarrassedly and resisted the urge to get up and take over anyway. It felt odd to watch Trautman doing the heavy lifting for him.

“I’ve reset it and tamped it more firmly at the bottom. Even if the little bits move and wash away in the weather, it’s not going to come down easy.”

“Thanks.”

Trautman wiped his brow with the back of his arm and looked up at the gathering clouds. “Seems like we’re finishing right on time, too.”

“Here—” Rambo did get up then, “I’ll rejoin those stray wires if you hold ‘em steady for me, then we can head back. Get started cookin’ something.”

“Sure.” Trautman untied his shirt and slipped it back on, before leaning down to snag one length of the rolled metal wire out of the grass by his feet. “Top one first?” he asked, and Rambo nodded and ducked under him to fix it taut around the nail in the wood. The open shirt brushed over his face and he laughed and pushed it back behind his head so it didn’t obscure his light. They worked close together like that for a few minutes, methodically repositioning and getting lower as each of the lines of wire was resecured to the wood, Rambo testing the tension on each one with his own strength as he went.

He was conscious of the warmth coming off Trautman’s body, shielding him from the the breeze and coupling with the regular rhythm of his breathing to make a solid and comfortable intrusion into his personal space. Somehow it had become a very natural feeling to have him that near now; it was a huge change to how Rambo usually felt about people getting up close to him, and he wondered at the way they’d managed to slip like this – so slowly and inexorably – from being who they were to each other professionally to who they were for each other personally. The fact that Trautman didn’t ever seem hesitant to be with him, or to help him out, or to touch him… Thinking about it made him feel a kind of soft tug deep inside his stomach that nearly distracted him from catching the final loop in place cleanly.

“We're almost there,” he said quietly. He leaned sufficient weight on the last wire to be sure it was going to hold for anything that ran into it, then sat back on his heels. It brought him back against Trautman’s leg, and he felt him move to steady him. “Okay.”

As if cued by his words, the wind suddenly kicked up a notch and a light patter of rain began to fall. They both glanced to the sky, with Trautman automatically holding out a flat palm to the air to catch the drops. “How about that?”

“I guess I shouldn’t have started talkin’ about bad weather in the first place,” Rambo remarked. “Someone up there’s got a fucking sense of humour.” He stood quickly, pulling himself up by the post and turning to an amused-looking Trautman. “What?”

“I’m agreeing that it’s funny.”

“Yeah, except now everything’s gonna get soaking wet. God, or whoever-the-fuck we’re pretending is responsible for this couldn’t have waited five minutes more?”

“Ah, but then it wouldn’t have been funny; it would have been lucky,” Trautman told him, a grin cracking on his face, “and since when have we ever enjoyed an abundance of that?”

Rambo grinned back. “About never. Yeah, it figures. Come on, we gotta get the tarp around those tools before the rain gets into them; don’t want ‘em to rust out.”

Despite his words, and the now steadily falling drops, Trautman held his position for a little longer. “John, I _do_ feel lucky about something.”

“Yeah?”

“That I can be here like this with you; that we’re both alive and doing all this together.” He was still smiling as he spoke, but Rambo could hear the feeling in his voice, and the tug in the pit of his stomach pulled stronger in response.

There was a strange moment of stillness while they both looked each other in the eyes, wordlessly acknowledging and sharing the truth of what he’d said, and then suddenly Trautman was pressing him back against the post and their lips were crashing together.

The fence was firm behind him, and Rambo braced on it and let his hands come up to bunch the rumpled cotton of Trautman’s shirt in his fists, desperately drawing him closer and taking the kiss deeper. Out here, there was no one to see them – no one to judge. Trautman was right: soon the rest of the world could forget they existed and they could just live out the rest of their lives like this, day by day. The realisation was almost overwhelming, and he felt like he could’ve kissed hungrily like that forever.

The cool rain coming off his hair and running onto his heated skin was a reminder of how exposed they were to the elements though, and eventually he had to pull away. “I don’t wanna stop, but if a storm’s coming, it’s not smart to be standing right out here in a field.” He let go of the shirt, fingers trailing it reluctantly, and watched Trautman blink the rain off his eyelids and focus back on his face, expression intense with desire.

“I think we got another good reason to get inside...”

And in a split second they were both moving, Rambo catching up the tarp and tossing it haphazardly to cover the shovels on the ground. It was half-assed but he didn’t care; they were already wet and he had a more pressing urge to take care of. Trautman had grabbed the gloves, and when their eyes met again, they both started running down towards the house.

Rambo couldn't help breaking out into a grin again as he ran, half in anticipation of what he knew was going to happen next, and half at the sheer ridiculousness that any of this was happening at all. Their crazy ability to take on whatever the world had for them - whether it was a combat situation with impossible odds, or something as simple as mending a fucking fence in the rain - it kept on working out because they were doing it together. “Yeah!” he hollered out, and heard Trautman start laughing too, hot on his heels. “Hey, if you got breath to laugh you got breath to run faster!”

Then they both sped up, racing and pushing each other through the pouring rain towards the farmhouse; _their_ house. Rambo marvelled at it: if this was gonna be how their lives kept going from now on, then he felt damn lucky too, because that day-by-day was turning out so much better than he could ever have predicted.

 

_-fin_


End file.
